Friday, February 01, 2013

three R’s – Ridley – Rowan – Ripon

I’m off the Cambridge in a few hours. My first destination is Ridley Hall, where I will be with the Pioneer stream and Dave Male. It’s a first “flash” of my sustainability of fresh expressions 10 years on data. Very initial, but a chance to get some discussion going and get a UK take on the data.

Then an interview with Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a key figure in the birth of Fresh expressions in the UK. It was John and Olive Drane who suggested I seek an interview. I laughed and said he was much to busy. But they encouraged me, so I did. And I will.

What it will do is create a 3 way dialogue – first between the communities on the ground, second between the Colleges who train leaders and are part of denominational systems and third, between the actual leaders of the system. In the fresh expression case, all are innovators. All are seeking to birth something. All have different roles.

Yet systems are funny things. Probably because they are full of people. Who do unexpected things. So, what happens when different parts of a system get involved in the same, yet different, innovation?

Then back to Ridley. For a weekend to recover from Bristol-London-Cambridge, from 7 interviews. And in between trying to keep writing up the other project – Innovation: Ethnography. I’ve managed about 5,200 words this week, so progress continues.